


Solace

by slipsthrufingers



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, all feels all the time up in here, plot? what plot!, season 8 fix it of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28474896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipsthrufingers/pseuds/slipsthrufingers
Summary: Jaime receives news from the south.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 26
Kudos: 149
Collections: JB Festive Festival Exchange 2020





	Solace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catherineflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherineflowers/gifts).



> thank you to nire for looking this over!
> 
> In response to the prompt 'emotional turmoil'!

Sansa still had the scroll with her, tucked into her sleeve or squirrelled away in some hidden pocket. She’d passed it to him, let him read those words, and then had taken it back before he could truly comprehend the words. Perhaps he had read it wrong. Perhaps the letters had twisted and morphed, as they always did, into some untrue missive, his mind playing tricks on him one final time.

If Sansa had let him keep it he could have traced the soft curls of her name and the words that follow, letter by letter with his fingernail — _C e r s e i i s d e a d_ — until he was certain it was correct, and not some cruel jape.

But it is tucked in between the furs of the northern ice queen, and he doesn’t dare ask to keep it. Jaime knows she believes the message, that was easy enough to read. The look of triumph on her face was unmistakeable, as was the subtle lilt of glee in her voice. Her enemy, her tormenter, dead half a world away. One more name scrubbed off her sister’s list.

And him.

Left alone.

In the north.

For some time he stands there in the courtyard, adrift in the air like the gentle snow that falls, whipped up by the wind into flurries about his head. It is a light fall now, but the clouds on the horizon promise a more substantial storm, and he cannot stay here longer, lest he be buried by ice just as his sweet sister was consumed by fire.

He wills his feet to move, walking aimlessly at first, no destination in mind but away. Away from here. Even without the letter. It is not as if it matters anymore, now that he is alone again. Twinless. Just a man. Barely a man. A man with no name, no title, no lands and now, no family.

Nothing.

Nothing but the clothes on his back and a useless golden hand.

For a time he is nothing and no one and nowhere, until he finds he is in a familiar passageway. He doesn’t remember turning this way, certainly never would have come here on purpose. This place is not for him, today. Not after everything.

And yet he _is_ here.

The door is as sturdy as she is, tall and nondescript and unremarkable, except for what it contains within. He knows the warmth of the room beyond, and the woman too. He had no right to spend the night with her. Within her. No right to be taken behind her walls, and between her thighs. And held so tightly all throughout the night until he had woken the following morning, sated, and happy and alive.

And the universe had reminded him, so very swiftly, why he deserved none of it. He had left Cersei and she’d died. He’d left her to die. Why should he be able to knock lightly on this door and enter, and be enveloped in its warmth and its light? Why would the gods look so lightly on someone such as him?

He drops his hand from the doorknob. There must be somewhere else he can stay the night, with the guards, perhaps, or with the dogs—

The door opens and there she stands, outlined in the orange glow of the burning fire behind her. As she does he is hit in the face by the warmth of the air escaping the room.

“Jaime,” she says, so softly he knows that she knows. It is in the way her jaw tightens, and the little lines of tension appear at her brow. How can he read her so well when he has known her for such a short time. Add all the hours and minutes and days together and he’s barely spent half a year with her, probably less, but she doesn’t wiggle out of his grasp like the letters on a page. She is firm and fixed and kind, so very very kind.

Jaime opens his mouth to say something, an apology, an excuse, a goodbye, who can say. But before he can speak she reaches out and pulls him to her in a rare hug.

His face is pressed into the rough-spun linen of her shirt, into the uncomfortable seam along her collar, padded thicker to protect her neck from the edge of her pauldrons. It smells of metal, and of her sweat, and something more indefinable and intimate.

“Sansa told me,” she says, her voice deeper and more comforting than ever, heard through his ear pressed against her throat. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The words are a blade that cut his strings, and if it weren’t for her arms around him he would have fallen to the floor. But she catches him, and guides him inside once more, into her room, her protection.

Her heart.


End file.
